


Werewolf Weather

by cestmabiologie



Category: Ginger Snaps (Movies), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Crossover, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-05 18:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5385419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cestmabiologie/pseuds/cestmabiologie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe there was another one out there, somewhere, who felt the way she did when she ran. Someone whose head was only ever clear when her muscles were pumping. </p><p>Beth didn’t like to think about it. </p><p>Instead she pushed her pace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. and then

Beth had been running this path for a solid month now and her body had gotten a feel for it, for the rhythm of footfalls and inclines and turns. Frustratingly, that familiarity didn’t stop her from tasting iron after the first kilometre. She’d asked Cosima about that once. And had regretted it. Cosima’s hands had immediately flown out of frame on Skype as she’d waxed fanatic about elite athleticism and mild pulmonary edema and tiny droplets of blood leaking between tiny air pockets in the lungs. 

“I could have told you that,” Alison had said. “Why does everyone always forget that I studied kinesiology?”

“Science is mostly still out on why it happens,” Cosima’d shrugged. “It could be genetic.”

Genetic. Great. 

Not like she’d ever get around to testing that theory. The only one half-likely to go out for a run would be Alison, but she was too paranoid about being seen, even when Beth suggested running at night, or under the cover of fog, like this morning. She had even tried convincing Ali to come out and run a half-marathon or something. She’d found out about an event in Vancouver called SeaWheeze last summer, but even the promise of exclusive Lululemon swag couldn’t convince Alison to skip out on her family to run a half-marathon on the other side of the country. Too bad. Beth imagined that in another province they could have spent a few days not constantly looking over their shoulders.

Beth didn’t ever bother asking Cosima if she’d run. Aside from the fact that she was back at school, Beth figured it would probably be a laugh to see Cosima’s stoner lungs could handle a workout, her arms flailing and dreads flying.

Maybe there was another one out there, somewhere, who felt the way she did when she ran. Someone whose head was only ever clear when her muscles were pumping. 

Beth didn’t like to think about it. 

Instead she pushed her pace.

It was foggy, even for a September morning. The kind of fog that kept everything within a foot from your face behind a seemingly impenetrable curtain of white. She could barely keep track of her feet, and every now and then got a sense that she’d come dangerous close to running straight into the brush that lined the path on either side of her. A sense like a hand hovering, but not daring, to stroke her hair.

Werewolf weather.  The memory surfaced from her childhood. Some kid—his name was Cody. Right. He’d shared a bus stop with her. Every morning they’d shiver and kick at rocks and on Mondays he’d tell her about the episode of  The X-Files  that had aired the Friday before. Beth hadn’t been allowed to watch  The X-Files . She hadn’t even been allowed to watch  Are You Afraid of the Dark?  and that played on a kids’ channel. She was pretty sure that’s what he’d called it. Werewolf weather was when the fog was so thick that monsters could come out during the day. 

A twig snapped and her heart jumped. She hadn’t been allowed to watch those shows because she’d been a chickenshit kid and Cody’s bus stop stories had been enough to give her nightmares. She’d slept with a flashlight under her pillow, just in case, and had lied whenever anyone was looking for it and asked if she’d seen it around.

She checked her watch. Another twenty minutes and Ali’s kids would be off to school, her husband gone to work, and she would have a pot of hot coffee waiting. 

It was a good routine.

Another snap, to her right this time. Before she could even begin to turn her head towards the sound she was tackled to the ground. She landed on her back and felt her breath forced out of her lungs upon impact. 

Out of reflex, she tucked her chin and threw an arm up to protect her face—and clenched her jaw against a scream as she felt the animal’s teeth sink into her forearm. She’d heard horror stories about joggers being attacked by aggressive dogs, but Bailey Downs wasn’t the type of neighbourhood where that sort of thing happened. Bailey Downs was the type of neighbourhood that had leash by-laws and bans on pit bulls.

The animal snarled. It shook its head and Beth felt her arm threatening to be pulled from its socket. It had latched onto her. 

That’s good , a remote part of her was saying, improbably calm, even as every other cell in her body screamed otherwise. Her free hand groped uselessly for anything, a rock, a stick, to hit it with. She tried kicking at its stomach, but she couldn’t get a good angle. The dog snorted hot, humid bursts of breath into her face, its eyes locked onto hers. 

Were you supposed to avoid eye contact with dogs or maintain it? Shit, she couldn’t remember. She willed herself to keep her eyes open—to blink felt like it would betray weakness.  Not like it didn’t already feel like creature  knew that she was defenseless.

There was nothing. Adrenaline curled her free hand into a fist and brought it down as hard as she could onto the animal’s face. She felt the subtlest shift in its grip on her arm and drew her knee up to her chest and with a hoarse cry kicked out as hard as she could. She felt its teeth tear at her arm, tear a scream from her throat, as its weight lifted off of her. She heard the scrape of gravel as it landed and regained purchase, still growling. It wasn’t finished with her. 

“Is everything alright?” a voice called out. It didn’t sound nearby, but it was a quiet morning. Beth’s cry must have carried. She didn’t answer. She was terrified. This was Ali’s neighbourhood, and she couldn’t afford to be mistaken for her like this. 

But the stranger’s voice had an effect on the dog. She could hear it crashing away through the bush at full-speed, away from the voice and away from her. Beth felt her body begin to shake. 

This is shock , she thought.  This is shock. 

“Hello?”

The stranger who had unwittingly saved her was getting closer. Beth couldn’t stay here and wait to be found. She forced herself to her feet and into an ungainly trot, hugging her bleeding arm to her chest. If she was right about where she was on the trail, it was about an eight-minute jog to Alison’s. 

She could make it. 


	2. everyone's standing there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just... staring. Why don't they just catch that thing? How hard could it be in a place full of dead ends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Blood.

2.

It’s hard to be inconspicuous in suburbia when you’re bleeding through your shirt.

Beth kept her head down. She tried not to look directly at any house that wasn’t Ali’s.

_Back door back door back door_ , Beth reminded herself as she ducked around the side of the house and let herself in. Alison’s house was warm. Her house was always warmer than it needed to be. Beth was shivering.

_This is shock._

“You’re late,” Alison called from the laundry room. Beth didn’t answer. Alison appeared a moment later with a basket of clothes. Her eyes widened as soon as they took everything in. Beth could only imagine how she looked. _Out of place_ came to mind: an understatement.

“Holy cheese and crackers. Beth—What did you do?”

“I’m fine. I got attacked by a dog.” Or something. Not like any dog she’d seen before. “I’m fine.”

Alison shook her head, “You are not fine. You’re covered in blood. We have to get you to a hospital.” She gripped her laundry basket more tightly.  “That dog could have rabies.”

_Something feels wrong_ , Beth almost said. Not bad, exactly. Just wrong.

“I don’t have rabies,” she said instead.  Rolled her eyes, just a little. Turned up a corner of her mouth, just a little. Just enough to reassure. Beth was tired. The adrenaline burst from the attack was waning fast. She could feel her energy being sapped into the floorboards.

"You can’t know that,” Alison said. “At least let me have a look at it.”

Beth obediently moved to take a step forward. Alison put up a hand to stop her.

“Go around. I don’t want you to get blood on the rug. There’s a first aid kit in the washroom. We can get you all cleaned up and go from there.”

 

The blood was sticky and had started to dry. Beth had to peel her sleeve off her skin to expose her forearm. It felt like peeling back skin.

“Let’s see.”

Alison was armed with alcohol wipes. The smell reminded Beth of climbing chain-link fences, of skinning knees on asphalt, of running home to have her wounds looked after. She braced herself for the familiar sting of rubbing alcohol, but it never came. Alison worked with a mother's efficiency. A handful of wordless minutes passed and her arm felt cool and clean. Alison was quiet.

“You okay?”

Alison was still looking at Beth’s arm. “It looks fine, Beth. Actually, it looks like it’s already healing.”

The tears in her skin looked like they could have been a day old at least, not from twenty minutes ago.

“That’s good, right? I mean, I guess that means it didn’t get me as bad as I’d thought.”

Alison still looked thoughtful. She couldn’t figured out whose dog it could’ve been just running around, attacking people. Bailey Downs feels strongly about leashes and muzzles, she told Beth. Ever since a really awful dog attack back when Alison had been in high school. Not her high school, but she’d heard about it. Everyone had.

“It was a big deal,” she said. “Some kids died.”

“I don’t think this dog belonged to anyone, Ali,” was all Beth could think of to say.

Beth wasn’t even sure if it was a dog, exactly.

Alison taped some gauze over Beth’s arm, even though it didn’t look like it would start bleeding again any time soon. She meticulously rolled up the gauze, tucked it back into her first aid kit and put everything away. The bloody alcohol wipes disappeared to the bottom of a wastebasket, under some balled-up tissues. Beth waited patiently as Alison worked. Her skin itched under the gauze.

Alison left and returned with a clean sweatshirt and passed it to Beth.

“You can wear this home. I don’t know if you can save your shirt,” Alison said. “If you try, use cold water. Peroxide might work. But if you’re not careful, it might bleach the colour.”

“Thanks. I’ll probably just pitch it.” The animal’s teeth had torn through the sleeve before finding her flesh.

But it’s just a scratch after all. It’s just a scratch and it’s healing.

“I don’t know how you’re so calm. If it’d been me—” Neither could picture it. What sort of animal would even try, even dare? “Are you sure you don’t need anything? I can give you something to take with you just in case.”

_I don’t want to die_ , she could say. And Alison would hug her, probably. And it would feel good. She’d reassure her and it would feel good. But Beth didn’t feel like she was dying. Not exactly. It was just a scratch.

“I’m fine.”


	3. you're starting to understand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aren't you? How it all starts with wanting?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: prescription drug use

3.

Lorazepam. Escitalopram. Serotronax. Allevia. Superprax. Draxifil. 

Their names rattle like machinery. Click click click. Like a gun being dry-fired, a hammer striking nothing but an empty chamber. Beth’s hand hovered over the shelf, undecided, before landing on a bottle of Aspirin.

Click. Beth closed the cabinet and stared at herself in the mirrored door. 

Her brain felt like a wet sponge behind her eyes. She looked like shit. 

Her skin had stitched itself together, forming rows of tidy scabs. They itched. She ran her fingertips over the edges, tempted to pick at them. 

Click. Beth heard the sound of the front door bolting shut. She heard Paul placing his keys in the wooden box by the door. A creature of habit. Next he’d head into the bedroom to change his shirt. She tipped two tablets into her palm and drank straight from the tap to wash them down. She ran her fingers through her hair, pulled her sleeves back down over her arms, wiped her mouth. 

Paul was exactly where she’d expected him to be, unbuttoning his work shirt.

“Hey.”

He stopped and looked up at her. To her mild surprise she felt an...ache. And her hands slipped under his and she was unbuttoning his shirt. She forced her hands to slowness, resisting the temptation to tear the shirt open. to tear it off. to get her hands onto his skin to feel his muscles tense and relax beneath her fingertips to tear

“Hey.” 

Paul’s hands were on her shoulders. Holding her, but not holding her close. 

“Are you okay?”

He was searching her face. She tried to look him in the eye, but her gaze kept slipping off his face. Slipping away. Slipping to the floor, to his suitcase open next to the closet. She couldn’t keep her eyes pinned to one place. She decided she could kiss him. And he let her. The ache built. A dull, little ache like hunger. Maybe he felt it through her mouth. Maybe he felt it, too. 

He pulled away and she was back at arm’s length. 

“Not that I’m complaining,” Paul said, “because I’m not. Not at all. It’s just—”

Good Guy Paul. He didn’t have to say it. It’s just that it’s been awhile since he’s been home, awhile since she’s been present. And shouldn’t they talk about it? Such a Good Guy. Couldn't he just accept that she wanted him? That she still wanted him after all? But he always had to be the Good Guy. Maybe she didn't want that. Maybe she just wanted—needed—to be touched.

“We can talk about it later.”

He leaned in to meet her and her ache—it was hers after all, she’d decided, hers alone—transformed. It betrayed her. She felt her insides seize and she was heaving. She was doubled over, fingers digging into the carpet pile. The taste of bile burned her throat and coated her tongue. 

“Jesus Christ, Beth,” Paul was on the floor next to her, his hands tangled in her hair, holding it back from her face. Good Paul. Such a Good Guy. Always so patient with her messes. “What did you take?”

“Nothing!” Beth gasped. She wanted to get to the toilet, to the sink, but her insides refused. And he was letting her retch on the floor like an animal. 

“Don’t lie to me, Beth,” Paul said, too loudly, “Tell me and we’ll get it out of you. We’ll go to the hospital right now.”

“Nothing!” Beth repeated in as firm a voice as she could manage with her stomach threatening to turn itself inside-out. 

“Just aspirin. I took everything exactly like I do every day.” Then: “I’m sick.”

Paul’s hands were on her skin, sticking to her clammy forehead. She had a fever. She was burning up. The aspirin would’ve helped with that if only she’d kept it down. When she stopped gagging, Paul carried her to bed. Set a glass of water next to the table. Click. As he pulled a blanket over her body, she asked

“Why do you love me?”

And he kissed her forehead and replied, “Shhh, Beth. You’re delirious. Just get some sleep.”

And she thought, that’s not much of an answer. That’s not any sort of answer at all. 

Beth couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. Fever cramped her muscles and pressed at her from the inside. Her body was caught in the trap of her bones. Sweat matted her hair and pasted it across her forehead, her neck. She thought she heard voices in the room, but couldn’t place them. She thought she felt hands on her face, in her mouth, on her body. She thought she smelled sweat that wasn’t hers and wasn’t Paul’s. She stretched her hand to touch Paul’s pillow and it was cold. 

 

Beth wasn’t sure how long she’d slept. She woke up to an empty bed, to a crumpled mass of blankets on the floor, and to a note on her bedstand. 

I had to catch my flight. I hope that you’re feeling better. Take care of yourself. Love, Paul.


	4. and the only thing that helps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> is to tear living things to pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: prescription drugs mentions, alcohol, self-harm mentions

4.

“You say you’re experiencing compulsions, Beth. Can you describe these for me?”

**(** Beth was halfway through eating a pack of raw ground beef, pushing ragged chunks into her mouth with her fingers, before she realized what she was doing. She wiped the blood off her hands and threw what was left into the garbage.

Jesus, Beth. You’re going to give yourself E. coli, she told herself, while another part urged her to reach into the trash and tear off a few more shreds of meat. Even though it was unsatisfying and cold. **)**

Beth’s fingers knotted and unknotted in her lap. She knows that she has options: tell the truth, get some pills, possibly get a suspension, possibly something worse; lie and get nowhere; lie and get caught. Beth was a terrible liar and Doc Bowers knew it. Called her out on it whenever she tried.

Back to option one: tell the truth.

Be as vague as possible.

“I don’t know. To do things I normally wouldn’t. Things I don’t want to do. I don’t feel in control. Of myself.”

**(** Beth had taken to running in her own neighbourhood. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was afraid of going back to Bailey Downs and running into that _thing_. She didn’t know what she’d do if she came up against it again. She hasn’t returned any of Alison’s texts or calls, except once: a quick “I’m fine”. She’d get back to her. She’d get to it.

She ran her personal best just a few days ago—five kilometres in just over sixteen minutes, but hasn’t been out since.  Running in the city meant that she wasn’t running alone. People she could handle, mostly, and other runners. But then there were dogs. They barked at her as soon as they caught scent of her. They growled. They strained at her leashes and snapped.

“You must have a cat,” one stranger offered, as if that were a reasonable explanation for why this supposedly docile—according to its owner—labrador was lunging at her like Cujo. She wanted to destroy the stupid thing for being in her way.    The dog.      The dog. If she saw that dog again she’d snap its neck.

And so Beth decided she would rather stick to a treadmill’s monotony. **)**

“Can you give me an example?”

Beth pushed the heels of her hands into her knees. Tiny bones in her wrists shifted and popped. There’s a bone in the wrist named after the moon. Beth wasn’t sure how she knew that, or if it was even true. She shook her head.

“Look Beth, I don’t want to play Twenty Questions. You came to me today for help. I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

Beth pressed her lips together. She did need help. And Bowers had listened before, had helped her before with signatures on slips of paper that folded into her jacket pocket and unfolded at the pharmacy.

Bowers sighed. “Alright, then. Have you spoken to Paul at all about these compulsions?”

For the first time this session Beth’s response was quick and firm. “I don’t want to talk about Paul. I didn’t come here to talk about Paul.”

**(** When Paul got back from his trip he wanted to spend time with her, to go out on the town. To make up for leaving her alone while she was sick. Beth agreed only because she didn’t think she could stand him springing for intimacy at home. And so they went out to a bar they’d both liked when they’d started dating. The smell of so much sweat and sex in one place had almost done Beth in. People were practically mauling each other on the dance floor. She’d solved the problem by getting sense-obliteratingly shit-faced. That also solved the problem of having to deal with any friskiness once they got home. That night Beth had slept with a bucket next to the bed. She felt Paul wake up a few times to brush her hair out of her face and check her breathing.

But while they were out Paul used her phone to take awful photos of them together. Their faces were washed out, overexposed, and Paul had a mean case of red-eye. Beth’s eyes were glowing, too. They were reflecting the greenish colour of a deer caught in headlights.

“It’s because you always leave the auto-flash on, dipshit,” she said, taking her phone back and ducking into the restroom stall to call Cosima.

“Hey? It’s late isn’t it? Is something up?” Cosima sounded groggy.

“You know when you take photos of people and you get red-eye, right? But if you take a photo of...a dog? They don’t get red-eye. It’s some other colour—”

“You sound drunk. Are you out right now? I hear people.”

“Can people get that? The weird glow instead of red-eye.” Beth hoped that Cosima didn’t notice how obviously she’d forced the conversation away from questions about herself.

“No—red-eye is like, literally light bouncing off the retina on the inside of your eye. And it’s full of blood vessels, so, that’s where you get the red. But animals that need to see well at night have this extra layer called the tapetum lucidum, which basically translates to ‘shiny carpet’—well, ‘tapestry’ but who says ‘tapestry’ anymore? Anyway, it basically reflects light so that they can see better in the dark. Humans are pretty useless at seeing in the dark and we, you know, invented lightbulbs, so we don’t need it.”

“What kinds of animals have it?”

“Loads of them. Like deer, they have it so they can keep an eye out for predators.”

“And predators?”

“Well, yeah. So they can—you know—hunt their prey or whatever.” **)**

Bowers usually pushed more on the topic of Paul. Their communication. Their intimacy (or lack thereof). Luckily, today, she didn’t seem as interested.

“These urges, do they involve yourself? Harming yourself?”

“No.”

Beth resisted the urge to touch the cuts hidden under her sleeve. They had been inflicted by something outside of herself, sure, but that something had fought its way inside of her. The scabs had fallen away but instead of scars her skin bore perfect ridges of dark downy hair. If she asked, Bowers might point her towards hormonal imbalances, or drug interactions. But it was with hollow hope that Beth considered these. The evidence was pointing overwhelmingly towards another answer, one that she refused to say out loud. Beth was a staunch believer that saying things out loud made them real, gave them power. And this was something that shouldn’t be real.

Beth was a terrible liar, but she was good at keeping secrets.

“Harming others?” Bowers didn’t even look up from her notes as she asked this. She couldn’t possibly have seen Beth tense at the question.

**(** Well— **)**

“No.”

Bowers put down her clipboard. Caught again. She was sure of it.  “I can tell we aren’t going to get any further today, Beth, so I’ll tell you this: You were diagnosed, what—a little less than year ago? We haven’t had to make any changes to your prescriptions in a while, but that doesn’t mean that the doses you’ve been taking are exactly what you need, or even close. We’ll adjust your dosage and see if that helps. The compulsions are new but it’s not unusual for people with your disorder to experience comorbid conditions. Hopefully a simple change will help you manage them. Stress, too, is a big factor. Use those cognitive behavioural tools I recommended.”

And there it was: a slip of paper held out to her. And she hadn’t had to really say anything at all.

  
“I’ll work on it.”


	5. when you close your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> is it hell you see?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: prescription drug use, body horror, blood

It happened last night. She ran barefoot down the sidewalks, then side alleys, then into brush. The ground wasn’t frozen yet, but it was cold enough to numb her skin against the bites of broken glass and cold-crackling blades of grass. She ran until her body forced her to stop. Forced her to her knees.

Everything she thought she might have expected from this ( ~~werewolf~~ she couldn’t do it, couldn’t say it even in her head) thing was wrong. Full moons have nothing to do with it. The moon has nothing to do with it. It was just wanting. Wanting that didn’t fit a human paradigm.

It was also taking. And flesh gives.

She didn’t transform. Her cells didn’t melt and stretch to form new parts. She metamorphosed. Eclosed. Her skin split at seams that shouldn’t exist: she felt it tear open down the ridge of her spine; she watched her fingertips split. She was scared (holy shit she was scared) but her fear was distant and trapped in a glass bottle of her thoughts, and new sensations   

of fascination  of    

power   

poured in to drown it.

She bent her head and ate the mess of flesh she’d left behind. The mess of Beth. She left her clothes. They were ruined anyway.

And she ran.

When she woke she could still feel adrenaline sparking in her veins. Her sheets were tangled around her feet, but they were clean. She expected blood and there was none. Her skin was filmy with dried sweat, but it was immaculate. No furred scratches. No dew claws. No seams or strains or tears. Huh.

She stretched and felt connective cords of muscles roll over each other, felt bones find homes in sockets. She padded to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Before it fogged over, she caught her reflection in the mirror. She expected to see someone new, someone strange, some outward evidence of her change. But she stared at herself and saw nothing. Maybe she hadn’t changed at all. She opened the cabinet and pulled down the bottles she knew she needed

and a few more. She’d need them today. And then stepped into the shower and scoured herself clean.

No one at work noticed. She sat at her desk and no one stared. It wasn’t the first time she’d shown up at work like this, but she wasn’t convinced they’d noticed then either. Or maybe they had noticed and they’d recognized her for what she was and ignored it. Or they talked about her when she wasn’t around to hear. Beth’s body fought between hunching to make herself as small as possible and stacking her vertebrae into perfect posture to show them that she was functional. Either way felt conspicuous.

Her inbox was full of unopened messages. Messages from Katja Obinger: another one dead before they could get to her: Danielle Fournier. The French one. More of the same signs

(I am fearfully and wonderfully made)

Beth’s chest squeezed when she opened the photo attachment. A passport photo. She never got used to seeing her face worn by someone else, and she was relieved that Danielle’s hair was a mass of curls so vastly different from her own straight hair. Looking at the others—Aryanna, definitely, and Janika, had been uncanny. Uncomfortable. In their photos they were solid and self-assured—you could see it in how they stared the camera down. And in those stares Beth was able to tease their selves apart.

(your works are wonderful    I know that full well)

This was the third one since she and Katja’d started working together. It was clear that Beth and Katja weren’t the only ones looking. Hunting. Danielle had died at the end of September, and Beth was only finding out now. It wasn’t good enough. They weren’t getting to them fast enough. They needed to pick up the pace.

Katja wrote that she’d try and get to the next one before she was picked off, too. She’d be in Toronto at the end of next month and Beth would have to think of a good place to meet. She’d get to it.

(I praise you because)

Hey.

Another message buried in the list of unopened messages caught her attention (she really shouldn’t be using her work email for this). She hadn’t expected to get a response from this one. His message was short, blunt, and doubtful. He’d think about what she’d had to say. He’d get back to her. She’d avoided using the word ( ~~clone~~ ). She always left it out until she could meet with them face-to-face. Until it couldn’t be denied. She would have to follow up with this one. Find some other words to convince him. Get him on her side. Let him know that people were dying, but without spooking him. She’d get to it.

“Hey.”

Raj wanted to know about the surveillance equipment. He reminded her in the way his hands pulled at the hem of his shirt and tapped rhythms on whatever he held in hand that he didn’t enjoy breaking rules. It made him anxious. But he always broke rules for Beth. It was sweet, really. It was useful.

“Just make sure you get it all back to me in the next week or so, okay? Before anyone notices it’s missing,” he said. His hands fiddled with his ID tag.

“Yeah. Thanks, Raj.” She gave him a smile.

He smiled back like he wanted to say something more, to draw out the conversation just a bit longer, but Beth pointedly (but hopefully not too pointedly) turned her attention away from him and back toward her monitor. She pretended to be engrossed by her inbox until she felt him leave.

On her desk there was a framed photo of her and Paul after she’d run her last half-marathon. She turned the frame with her fingertips until the glass caught light and glare streaked across Paul’s face. She’d set up the borrowed surveillance equipment to see herself, to see from outside herself, to see what was real. Instead, on the first night she’d caught strangers coming into her room. Sedating her while she was already unconscious. Locking her into sleep so they could take from her. Blood samples. Heart rate. Temperature.

The Beth on the screen, the Beth whose cells they’d pulled into syringes and vials, felt separate from herself. When she checked the video against her memory, she could recall nothing. When she tried to remember that night, there were no dreams or memories of changing. She watched the video on loop until she felt the invasion. And then she watched until she burned with betrayal.

Paul hadn’t been in the room. Not once. After they’d finished taking and had gone she’d been alone for an hour at least, in exactly the position they’d left her, until Paul had finally returned and tucked the sheets around her as if she'd fallen asleep early and he'd stayed up in the other room watching TV. He'd pulled her towards him. She’d curled into his warmth. Such a Good Guy.

There were other e-mails. She’d get to them.

She pulled up case files she’d found. They documented the Bailey Downs attacks and related incidents. Alison had said that some kids had died—what she hadn’t said was that they had been eviscerated. And a janitor left slumped and broken in the hallway during a school dance. His throat had been torn open. Some girls had gone missing; two were sisters. Only one ever turned up again, for a brief stint in a clinic, before disappearing again with one of the clinic’s charges. A minor. The case had grown cold over ten years ago.

Attached to the files were photos of the missing sisters: Ginger Fitzgerald. Brigitte Fitzgerald. Photos of attack victims exactly as they were found: limbs bent at impossible angles, their insides pooled and congealing around them. Photos of dead dogs. Blood. Gore. But then

the other missing girl

was interesting.

She was another one with Beth’s face. A younger version, but the photo was old.  This one’s hair was blonde, but there was no question as to what she was.

The photo was scan of a Polaroid from the clinic where she had been last seen. No name. No other documentation. Just the word “Ghost” in pen across the bottom of the photo. Beth had checked—the Happier Times rehabilitation centre (which was probably worst name anyone could have ever dared to call a rehab) had run out of funding and shut down years ago. Of course.

“Hey.”

Beth jumped and closed the photo. Had he seen? He must have seen. You’re letting yourself get sloppy, Childs. Get a grip.

Art didn't comment on her being skittish. He was used to her jumping and flinching when it didn't matter. You're always rock solid when it counts, he'd say.

“Who’s that?” Art nodded toward her screen. Behind the photo she'd closed was another of sallow Brigitte Fitzgerald staring out at them. She demanded mentioning. Beth searched for an acceptable truth.

“Oh. Yeah. Do you remember anything about those attacks in Bailey Downs a while back?” Beth pulled up more photos from the file, carefully avoiding the Girl With Her Face. “Wild animal attacks or something, right?”

“You mean The Beast of Bailey Downs? Sure, I remember that. Freaked a lot of people out for a while.” Art grimaced at the photos of the attack victims. “C’mon Beth, I was about to ask if you wanted to do lunch. Put those away. Why are you looking into this anyway? Something come up?”

Beth complied, but not without aiming wry smirk his way. “Yeah, not really. I have a friend in that neighbourhood and she mentioned something about it. Was worried about it happening again.”

“It’s a nice neighbourhood,” Art shrugged. “If your friend’s really worried about it, tell her not to leave her dog out at night. It’s not like someone’s going to go around and mimic the attacks.”

Go around and snap the necks of family pets, was what he meant. Go around and tear the heads off of living things and destroy them completely. Beth’s thoughts jumped through brain fug to what she did remember of her nights.

“Right.”

Art’s face settled into an expression that was familiar to Beth. Art’s Concerned Face. Beth wasn’t sure what she’d said or done (was she sitting too straight was she hunched too much had she said something without realizing) but he’d noticed something.

“Are you okay?”

Better than she’d been all week, actually. Better than she’d been in a long time.

“Yeah. Just tired. Where’d you want to go for lunch?” Her stomach growled. Drugs took away its edge, but the ache was always there, grinding away at her insides. She stood up.

Beth ignored the scent that lifted off his skin. It was enough to know that he cared about her. That he had her back. Art didn’t say anything. Beth was relieved he’d never said what chemicals in his sweat were screaming at her right then. And she knew he never would.

But she couldn’t stand his silence either.  

“What?”

“You’d tell me if something was going on with you, right?”

Now, that wasn’t a simple question. She’d tell him if she was training for a full. If she’d gotten food poisoning at a restaurant he liked. If Paul had been an ass the night before. She’d told him about her brain. About her prescriptions. And her new prescriptions. And her new prescriptions. He was her best friend.

But this was different.

“You’ve got to relax,” she told him, “I’m fine.”

She shrugged into her coat. She looped her scarf around her neck.

  
“Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Girl With Beth's Face ([x](http://40.media.tumblr.com/61de51eeffaa7364a7565f563f7097e2/tumblr_inline_nzsho1Z6MW1qfzflf_500.jpg))


	6. you're real.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> your problem is real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: blood, death, body horror, prescription drug abuse mentions

6.

Beth was not fine.

There was a dead woman lying at her feet.

She was definitely not fine.

Blood was seeping out and pooling onto the asphalt. Beth’s fingertips pressed pale into gunmetal.

Beth was not even approaching fine.

 

Her ears pricked to the sounds of     nothing. No footsteps headed toward her; no passersby keen to help. Beth was relieved. She didn’t think she could handle other people invading this moment. Art might have heard. They were both canvassing the neighbourhood; he shouldn’t be too far away. He might be on his way already. Art could help. He _would_ help, even if he didn’t understand how Beth could have shot

 

a stranger(Margaret Chen, Maggie Chen, forties, eyes: brown, hair: brown, affiliated with Proletheans, a religious cult with the same symbols same iconography found when they found Danielle and Aryanna and Janika and and and)

 

a stranger(a scientist, affiliated with the Dyad Institute, part of the multinational Dyad Group, a biotechnology research institute—

she’d stopped herself from bringing this piece up with Cosima. She could just picture the kid wanting to help out and get involved somehow. Play at being a secret agent. But Cosima was too smart and so obviously had a bright shiny future that Beth could never let her do that. It was too risky.

—ties with Dyad’s Dr. Aldous Leekie, ties with Neolution. Beth’s research into Neolution had led her down a rabbit hole of body modification and futurism and bleached white hair and white contact lenses and people who slice their fingertips open to implant magnets under their skin and people who dream of seeing in infrared and ultraviolet and people who believe that they can force their own fates and and and)

Beth didn’t have all of the pieces yet, but she understood enough to know that she was one of those pieces. She was a part of something. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know exactly what it was that she was a part of. After all, the woman on the ground was

 

a stranger. They’d never met before this. And Beth had not even been looking for her. She had just been trying to do her job. To canvass the neighbourhood, to ask the right people the right questions, and to show everyone that she could do a good job even when they were all waiting for her to fall on her ass ( _her drug-addled ass,_ no one said, but she knew they all thought it). She was a good cop. She was a good person. She was here and focused and present and

When they’d crossed paths it had felt like a connection, like plastic parts clicking into place. In Maggie’s face Beth read recognition and fear. Beth felt as if Maggie knew her and had been expecting to meet her, but she was unprepared to meet her At That Moment and that made her afraid. Beth realized At That Moment that she held all of the power. Maggie must have realized it too because she froze. She looked like a rabbit ready to run but she froze and Beth drew her gun.

If Maggie had said “I have answers” Beth might not have gone through with it. If she had said “I know what you are” or hell, even “don’t shoot me oh god please don’t” or anything at all, Beth was sure she would have stayed the muscles and tendons in her hands. But Maggie said nothing and impulse whispered in Beth’s ear that this would be one less threat, one less thing to protect against. No more versions of Beth being picked off like scabs. It might end here (it wouldn’t). It might.

The smell of blood was a razor to her gut and it spilled out hunger that she’d only barely caged with self-medication. With control. She was afraid that it was stronger than drugs and

stronger than her.

She bit the end of her tongue. Hard. Harder. No one was coming. She needed someone to come now before

She needed to call Art.

“Art, I need you to get over here right now.” Her words came out too fast and blurred at the edges but they were mostly in the right order. She was sure he understood what mattered: that she was in the courtyard off Pearl Street, that someone had been shot, and that she was definitely Not Fine, because he didn’t ask her to slow down. He didn’t ask her to repeat herself or explain herself. He didn’t ask if she’d called it in.

He said, “I’m two blocks over. I’m on my way.” and hung up.

He must have run those two blocks.

Beth couldn’t look Art in the eye. She couldn’t even look at his face. Her eyes slid to the ground and stayed there while he took in  everything. The woman was clearly dead. Her body had not been touched. There was no blood on Beth’s hands—she hadn’t even tried to save her. Beth was still holding the gun in one hand, her cell phone in the other. At the very edge of her vision, Beth could see Maggie’s blood on the asphalt. If she moved her head just so it disappeared into a blind spot; if she moved again it was right there.

It was Art who reached into Maggie Chen’s pocket and pulled out her cell phone. It was Art who wiped it down and placed it into her hand and curled her fingers around it. It was Art who called in Detective Elizabeth Childs’ weapons discharge resulting in a civilian fatality.

Beth stood and watched. She’d taken a human life. It was easy. It was brutal. She was capable. She was weak. She was a monster.

Art took the gun out of her hand and she let him. He took it away from her. He stood in front of her and she closed her eyes.

“Look at me.”

She did and was sure she could see her eyes reflected back at her, pupils like ponds. His eyes made the tiniest skips back and forth as they looked into hers.

“You’re in shock,” he said.

_This is shock._

“You can cry,” he said.  
  
She thought, _animals can’t cry._

She was surprised when hot tears spilled onto her cheeks. She pressed her face into Art’s shoulder and let his jacket wick them away.


	7. it's gonna find you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> isn't it? You know the fact that it didn't kill you tonight...that means something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: guns, blood

7.

 

“I feel kind of... _bad-ass_ ,” Alison said, her voice dropping halfway to a whisper.

“Yeah, well, just wait until you shoot the thing,” Beth gestured to her ear protection, “Put yours on before you shoot.”

Alison obeyed and turned toward the targets—stuffed animals perched on fenceposts. (Beth had meant to bring empty cans, but she’d forgotten. Alison had pulled these out of a bag in her minivan. They’d been destined for Goodwill, she’d insisted. She could sacrifice a few.) With only one quick glance over her shoulder—Beth gave her a thumbs’ up for reassurance—she carefully aimed the gun exactly as Beth had shown her and fired. The bullet clipped the edge of a fuzzy bear. Not bad for her first try.

Alison laughed, surprised and giddy. Beth remembered how it felt the first time she’d fired a gun (and the last time). She remembered the bang and recoil that never again quite had the same force. The exhilaration (the terror) of knowing that so much power was pressed into the palm of her hand. She remembered how it felt to know that she could use this power to protect, to fight off some of the scarier scenarios that had made homes for themselves in the nooks and crannies of her brain.

And then there was this new power pressing out against her palms from within. She could kill. Could she   protect? She didn’t know the answer, but the question had kept her locked in her apartment for   eight days.

(When she’d told Paul she was under suspension, he didn’t understand. He refused to believe that the Beth that stood before him could possibly have done what she was describing. He tried to convince her that she could fix this, that he could fix this if she could only explain(she couldn’t. not to him). He’d tried to hold her(tried to grip her) but she’d pushed him away. She wouldn’t let him touch her(she could kill him). She’d screamed at him to leave. She’d begged him to give her space.

In the end, she wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but he’d left. He called her twice a day and she’d wanted to ignore him, but she hadn’t. She’d answered every call so he wouldn’t come back to check on her. _Yes, I’m alive. Not yet. Soon. Just give me time._

She woke up once with blood on her hands.

Turned out she’d chewed the ends of her fingers raw. This was actually a relief(she’d expected violence. she’d expected a carcass). She left a smear of blood on the door when she checked the deadbolt. She slid a table against the door for reinforcement.

Art called. She ignored him. He came by her apartment and pounded on the door. She'd sat on the the floor with her back against the door, feeling every knock reverberate through her spine. For all he knew she wasn't home, but he spoke through the door all the same. He demanded that she open up, scolded her for her radio silence, reminded her that hers wasn't the only ass on the line, told her that he was there for her if she needed him.

She’d tried to ignore Alison’s calls. She’d considered taking the battery out of the little pink phone, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead she’d hidden it in a drawer, where she could hear it vibrate with every call she missed, every text, every voicemail alert. When she finally checked the phone, guilt gnawed like hunger (Beth was _hungry_ ) in her gut.

Alison was afraid. And Beth wasn’t there to make her feel safe.)

The safety was off.

Beth stepped between Alison and the targets. Easy. Alison froze, uncertain, but she kept the gun raised. She was trying to decide if this was part of the lesson, even if it broke one of Beth’s first rules.

“If the time comes, you have to be able to pull that trigger without second guessing yourself, okay?”

Alison nodded, lips pressed together. Beth took a step closer. She closed her eyes and leaned into the gun barrel. It was cool and welcome against her forehead(she was still feverish. she’d never stopped feeling feverish.)

“If I’m standing here like this and I tell you to shoot, you shoot, Ali. Can you do that for me?”

Alison was quiet. Beth sensed that she was waiting for the joke, the wry smile that would deflect the seriousness of what Beth was asking. Once Beth cracked her joke Alison would be allowed to be angry (to be relieved) because this was _not funny_ , not at all. But Beth was silent and still. She watched Alison’s face. She could detect the faintest tremors vibrating through the gun. Alison’s grip slackened, and she let her arms drop to her sides. Beth’s forehead prickled with the ghost of the gun’s pressure against her skin.

“I need to know that you can do that,” Beth tried again.

Alison stared. She nodded again, her eyes closed.

“Okay.”

But Beth could sense it. The sweat and nerves and human chemicals for which she didn’t have names. Alison couldn’t shoot her, not if she were foaming at the mouth and lunging for her throat. And Beth wouldn’t make her do it.

 

Alison left first. They’d taken separate vehicles (Alison insisted that it was important, and Beth had not disagreed. Beth would never have thought to suggest otherwise). Beth lingered, scanning the edges of the forest that surrounded the field. She took deep breaths that filled her lungs and whispered in her throat as she exhaled. The air in her apartment had grown stale and she wasn’t looking forward to returning to it. But there was something else.

She reached for a holster that had been returned to her precinct well over a week ago. She’d given the other gun to Alison. A lady-grip: something she could handle when it came time to protect. Beth had nothing. And there was something else.

And it was near.

“She waits because she knows that they’ve been looking for her. They’ve been watching her and wondering where she got her face. She knows that she’s been found.”


	8. you know, we're almost not even related anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (you like it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we'll veer briefly into our crossover. Spoilers for Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed.
> 
> warnings: drugs, guns, mild body horror

8.

Beth curled up inside the closet because it felt like being held. When she breathed it smelled like dust and clean laundry. Shirtsleeves brushed at her face and stroked her matted hair. A hint of Paul’s scent; none of her own. Her hand was curled around a vial. The glass was smooth and cool against her palm. The liquid inside was an unlikely shade of purple.

It was poison.

It was a cure. (it wasn’t a cure, but)

It was a help.

It was

 

 

( _Another one_. Beth tasted what might be surprise when she turned toward the voice and saw the woman standing there. The emotion was stale, a faint bitter tang, but there it was. The woman’s face was Beth’s face(but paler but smaller somehow but curious but trying to pry Beth open with a stare). Bare, bony wrists poked out from sleeves that were just a bit too short. She looked like a child.

She was shouldering a shotgun.

“You should have changed by now,” she said. Beth heard, but she wasn’t listening. Not really. The biggest threat wasn’t this version of her. It was nearby, the Thing that had done this to her. She could sense it lurking somewhere near the treeline. What was it waiting for?

“She’s different.” Beth’s focus snapped back to the stranger, the Girl With Her Face. It wasn’t clear who she’d been talking to. To Beth? To the Thing? to herself? At least her frown was for Beth.  It told that she‘d been caught staring off, searching(what was it waiting for?). It told Beth that this stranger understood something that Beth wasn’t saying.

Beth had changed.)

 

 

It was another drug. Of course she was turning toward another drug. Self-medication was the only way she could think of to tie herself to the mast until her blood stopped singing for blood and her hunger subsided and her bones stopped threatening to reform under her skin.

 

 

(It was Beth’s duty to explain what she knew about being a clone. Beth had decided this, had claimed the responsibility as her own. What she knew, admittedly, wasn’t very much. But she’d done her best with the others, to be there to listen to their questions their doubts their fears and to offer an unsatisfying refrain: I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

But Ghost (she called herself Ghost. Ghost, the girl in the photograph. Ghost, the woman who might help Beth disappear before     ) didn’t seem interested in knowing why they shared a face. She just watched Beth drive. She watched Beth search for words (words that she'd used to explain so many times before but for some reason refused to come out now).   


“How does it feel?”

They were in Beth’s car. Ghost gave directions, pointing every now and then and saying “that way” or “over there”. Otherwise they’d bumped along dirt roads for kilometres of strange silences broken only by directions and questions like these. Beth was never ready for the questions. She was too aware of the shotgun across Ghost's lap (pointed toward the passenger window, she noticed with distant relief), of what was waiting for her in the woods.

Now they were stopped in front of a house.

"Sorry?" Beth said. She'd heard perfectly the first time.   


"How does it feel?"

Beth hesitated. "It's like...It’s—I’m a runner and, you know, when you’ve pushed your body so hard that you can feel your lungs burning and your heart pounding and all of your muscles and tendons feel like they’ll snap if you take another step? Then suddenly suddenly get this second wind and you’re running a new personal best even though your body was screaming just moments before—

it’s like that. Except those muscles and tendons don’t just threaten. They do snap. Your skin tears open. You burst through yourself and you’re running faster than you’ve ever run and it feels…powerful. Like you can keep going forever.”

Ghost’s face broke into an open and disarming smile. Beth hadn’t been expecting that. She wondered if she was supposed to smile back.

“Does it hurt?”

It hurt the way it hurt to tear surgical tape from your skin, except that it was your skin that was tearing. It hurt. It hurt so

“No.”

because the hurt didn’t last. Other hurt lasted, but this

this was release.)

  


Beth didn’t want release (well   ). She wanted control. But she wasn’t sure if this was how she wanted it.  She could just continue with her prescriptions. At least she mostly knew what happened to her brain, to her body when she took them. She didn’t want to introduce another unknown into her veins. But she did crave what it might do.

 

She could ask Cosima (she couldn’t ask Cosima).

  
  


(Ghost had to stand on a chair to reach. She pulled down a shoebox.

“This was Barbara’s house,” she said cheerily. “She was supposed to be my grandmother, but we both knew that she wasn’t. 

And now I really know she wasn’t.”

Her shoulders bounced in a sparrow’s shrug and she opened the shoebox and pulled out the vial. She held it out to Beth so that she could see, but not so that she could take.

“It’s monkshood,” she said. “Brigitte used to use it. It helped for a little while. It might help you.”

Brigitte.

“It’s just been me and Brigitte here for years. It’s okay, I guess.”

Beth noticed the crumpled papers and food packaging left on every surface to moulder. Beth noticed the windows caked with grime. Beth noticed the ragged hole in the ceiling. Beth noticed gouges in the floorboards. She felt a pressure between her shoulderblades.

Ghost hopped down from the chair.  


“Can you show me? Can you change whenever you want?” Her face was open, expectant, like they’d known each other forever. Like they were sisters.

“I’m not going to do that,” Beth wished she didn’t sound so obviously wary. She was hungry. She should be at home right now, counting out pills, counting minutes, taking care of herself. 

“I might hurt you.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Ghost’s tone was still playful, but Beth could feel the edge of hurt. No one’s ever worried about her. “You said that it felt _good_. Don’t you want to?”

Beth did want to, that was the problem. It had been such a relief to finally say things out loud. Her muscles were straining around her bones. But this wasn’t right. This wasn’t safe.

“This isn’t some dare. It’s not something you show off.”

Ghost pressed her lips together and nodded. She tucked the vial into her pocket and retreated into herself.  


"Ghost—"  


She'd turned her back. Beth noticed moth holes in her sweater. She realized she could overpower Ghost. At the same time she realized that she was afraid to.    


“She realized, of course, that this was where she’d have to stay.”

Beth noticed the deadbolt on the back door (did Ghost lock the front door when they came in? she must have). Beth noticed rows of mason jars on shelves and a faint smell of gasoline.

“Who did? Brigitte?” (Buy some time, Childs.) This was the clearest her mind had been in weeks and her thoughts were swimming. She knew she didn't mean Brigitte.  Brigitte was out there, lurking in the woods(what was she waiting for?).

Beth noticed Ghost’s hands on the tabletop, fingers picking at the cracked wood veneer. She noticed the shotgun on the table.

“You said we’re the same. We’re sisters.”

Beth felt herself begin to tear.)

 

 

In her closet, Beth shook. She reached up and pulled Paul’s shirts from their hangers and onto herself. She buried herself and she shook and she remembered. Her heart hammered with something that wasn’t fear and wasn’t guilt. It hammered with animal wanting and it kept going, even when she told it to stop.

She squeezed the vial in her fist and knew that it would never be opened, not for her. It wasn’t enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still here? Thank you for joining me on this brief crossover detour.


End file.
